House of Mirrors
by Takato Lover16
Summary: A trick mirror – simply, he damaged me with his weightless words. A trick mirror – but like he'd overdosed on emotion-killing medication, he was numb.
1. Prologue

A cold degree whispered behind my ears, originating from the sleepy air; through the lightless-ness I could feel him, unknowingly, steal another heartstring of mine. Mouth opening in a vain attempt at words, I artlessly stumbled and exhaled a false alarm.

Like stars, his eyes were ever-present – an after-image, disappearing subsequently back into the night sky.

"Would you touch my face?" He asked naturally, consonant, even within the expected dissonance.

Those words attacked the breach in my perimeter – a loophole just behind the molehills in my system. I re-positioned, sliding gracelessly upon both knees, and attempted night-vision; our hips had ceased contact, but I felt a different connection – illegitimate, as it most hazily was.

Like a mercenary, the poise with which he conducted himself reflected a stark independence, though he remained flag-less. Unblemished fingers portrayed a fragility, or so I made myself believe.

"So I could know how it feels" The impatient silences had answered the question.

My wish came true at that moment before I'd wished for it; the fragmented freckles decorating his nose and the plains of his cheeks were breathable – close.

Sensitive to the make-believe wind, my intentions shivered silently. Like a slowly burning candle, I flickered with syncopation. The tan of Takuya's skin was evident, even beneath the pale, waxen moon, and a matte shine showed him to be healthy and of internal warmth – superficial, though, it may have been.

In my imagining, he closed his eyes; but there they were – analyzing me critically with loose indifference. My limbs tensed like a February chill; I thought it cruel of him, to subject me to this burying frenzy. He was a house of cards under-construction, and I was the chosen architect; yet the blueprints didn't stipulate that'd I'd sink this way.

Beneath, his skin laughed, but only with wounded tones.

"I don't feel anything"

A trick mirror – simply, he damaged me with his weightless words.

A trick mirror – but like he'd overdosed on emotion-killing medication, he was numb.


	2. Chapter 1

The area is mostly colourless. Colourless and pale.

Grey trousers hang, like concrete shadows, over my thin legs, not entirely contrasting the room in which I reside. Colour never represented things to me, like it appears to, to other people; some see lilac and think of headiness, and some see white and think of sincerity. Having a bedroom which belongs to such a bland colour scheme hides any kind of representation on my behalf, legitimate or otherwise, and this is how I prefer it.

Must've been an early sunrise. Natural light envelopes the room, dying even dust particles with a warm hue; its origin: a giant ball of gas in the sky; its path: the multiple rectangular shapes of glass which surround the room like an ambush. These missionaries of colour, I hold no hostilities against, for the colour is not my own and the duties of representation no longer belong to me.

Bed sheets crumple beneath my small mass as I sit while adjusting my tie, wary of the minutes passing carelessly like cars past roadkill; wary, yet indifferent. I sigh as a tired dog would and lay back against the soft sheets, though only four areas of my body were bare enough to appreciate the sensation - my long, pale fingers joined to hands, and shameless feet; shameless only within the security of my spaces.

I feel you can solve many mysteries of a person through their unclothed feet; this belief scares me into never exposing my own, which allows creation instead of realization, which I prefer. Maybe it would be liberating, to reveal them to the world someday, for the slight movement of wind I feel around my uncovered ankles causes an unparalleled sense of freedom from the inside of me, but maybe it's too much to hope. A turn to the left, mostly to block out my pessimistic anticipations for the day ahead, I assume the position of a fetus, yet sadly, without the thoughtlessness of a fetus.

I finger my soles and milky toes, a vain attempt at transferring the freedom I feel from the nakedness of feet, to the nakedness of hands. Their temperatures mimic cold sand grains filtered by the sun, their textures reflect a juxtaposition of virginity and experience. I sit up slowly and cross my legs tightly beneath myself, a makeshift cocoon against the inevitability of the day, and lean slightly forward to fix my hair into position.

Due to the heat of deep-seated summer, I can already feel the stickiness of sweat cling, like a curse, sneakily, between my back and the heavy fabric of the school shirt and blazer. As a knot secures my bandana firmly in place, I untie my legs and pull one of them close to my chest, knee only centimeters from face. I feel instantly less free, and straight away more incarcerated, as my open feet become closed under veils of black socks and shoes, and lies.

I blink as my reflection does, into a mirror, and he turns away when I do. Even when we, as humans, lie, our mirrored selves always do as we do. In a house of mirrors, all the versions of yourself would follow the same direction, but angle themselves differently, thus creating slightly changed truths. This thought makes me want to invent a machine which would decode a lie sent into a house of mirrors, even to ourselves, and seek out the exit.

I blink as I didn't blink to Takuya, into a mirror, and he turns away when I do.


	3. Chapter 2

_**Peninsula – noun; an area of land surrounded by water except for an isthmus connecting it with the mainland.**_

…

 _On October 28_ _th_ _2013, in the world of science: the universe's 'loneliest' planet was discovered, floating aimlessly with no star to orbit. This relatively new-born planet (12 million years old), is floating freely, approximately, 80 light years from Earth, and its mass is only six times that of Jupiter._

 _This planet is being labelled as one of the most solitary objects in the universe. If I were assigned to naming the most solitary object, I'd name it 'The Act of Dying' – but in Latin, so it'd sound clever. I do not know of your beliefs in the afterlife and such things, or your non-belief in such things, but the actual act of dying always seemed a lonesome act to me._

 _Like Noh theatre in 14_ _th_ _century Japan; if the main actor were an adult and the rest were children, only the adult would be wearing a mask. Although, this could create a feeling of isolation, or security; and even the mask-less actors have to contort their faces, immovably so, to match the mask's complexion, so this left them not altogether mask-less._

 _They decided to the name the pink/purple planet: 'PSO J318.5-22' – it sounded like a name from the 'Alien' movies. It was identified by its faint and unique heat signature. Usually, a planet's heat signature is difficult to read, because of the massive heat of the host star it's orbiting, but because 'Et Act Moriendi' was alone, it was found. Which makes me wonder: are things/feelings there at all, before we discover/feel them? In physicality, I'm sure they are, but otherwise, we've only succeeded in making them a little less solitary._

' _Et Act Moriendi' has all the usual characteristics of a young planet orbiting a sun, but it's drifting all alone. Maybe its mother/father was negligent and wouldn't care for it, maybe it was knocked out of orbit without a choice, unwelcomingly, or maybe it was born alone. If it were born alone, it would've adapted to its solitary life, like humans have evolved to breathe oxygen, or fish in the deepest seas that have lights on their heads, or ones lower down with no need for eyes at all._

 _For a planet this solitary, company would probably kill it. Like us trying to breathe, unassisted, underwater, we would perish. Maybe if it had a diving suit, but a 'Human Interaction' suit, it just might survive._

 _Free-floating is a term used to describe objects in space which wander/float without any fixed orbit. 'Et Act Moriendi' is the lowest-massed free-floating object on record. I'm certain there are others and others with a high solitary ranking. Maybe there is hope for 'Et Act Moriendi'; scientists agree that it's like a baby Jupiter and Jupiter has a fixed point and a 'family' of its own now. On the surface, there appears to be a shadowed part which resembles a child's drawing of a face – like The Man in the Moon's cousin – but the distant, black sheep, outcast kind of cousin, obviously._

 _The masks used in Noh theatre were made out of Cypress Wood to make them as light as possible for the actors, who'd have to perform for several hours at one time. Many variants of mask were made, but a common characteristic they all share is the expressions painted upon them. Like when you look at a laptop screen from above or below, it looks darker or lighter, when the actor tilted his head upwards (Terasu), the expression would be slightly smiling/laughing and would lighten a little. When the actor tilted his head downward (Kumorasu), this produces a slight frown and can express sadness or crying._

 _I say "he" because Noh theatre was a, mainly, male-dominated profession in 14_ _th_ _century Japan, so much so that the men would often impersonate women – with the mask being the device of the disguise. I wonder if the moon's emotions would appear differently, if viewed Terasu instead of Kumorasu. Because the eye slots were carved so small, into the Noh masks, the actors would have to rely on the prominent wooden pillars at either end of the stage for any sense of direction._

 _This fact puzzled me; it is common belief that the eyes are our most expressive feature, yet theirs are practically hidden. Also, when people describe eyes, beautiful eyes, like in novels, the colour is always the subject of the description; yet it's the pupil size which we, instinctively and subconsciously, find the most endearing, and this is hardly mentioned._

 _Which makes me think that maybe they knew the value of hidden things. Like floating through space without a majestic naming ceremony, or the colourless eyes of Noh actors; maybe free-falling objects don't float so freely because they are unweighted by orbits/gravitational pulls, maybe they fall so freely because they're undiscovered, like their potential, and they're hidden but so clearly so._

 _That's why their heat signatures are so strong and unique – it's all the hidden things._

 _I believe you can increase the value of anything by hiding it (Apart from feelings – they just increase in weight)._

 _You could walk past the same objects, people, and things every day, but until one is hiding, you never really notice they weren't there. Like when you 'complete' a jigsaw, only to find there's a piece missing; you couldn't see at first that it wasn't there – you have to wait until the black space is staring up at you. It would be silent in that moment, like behind a Noh mask. And you would appear, to it, to be frowning sadly and crying._

 _If you gave a kid a bag of 99 red sweets and 1 blue sweet, and told them they could take only one, chances are they'll take the blue sweet. Alternatively if you did the same thing again, but with 99 blue sweets and 1 red sweet, they'd probably take the red sweet. It seems inherent, in the human condition, that the less of something there is, the more precious that thing seems to be (to people). But we also take the precious things immediately and gorge ourselves on them, or make cheap replicas, like fraudulent Noh masks._

 _I think this must be why certain people, maybe you reading this, are prone to being in abusive relationships, whether that be emotional abuse or otherwise. People are attracted to the scarce things in people, just like in the world, like love; and these partners have an immense scarcity of love, in abundance._

 _Maybe you're using scientifically advanced spectacles which allow you to see the hidden things; but that's the cross the hidden things have to bear – when you find them, they lose their hiding abilities. Upon discovering this, you want to create a scientifically advanced shovel, to again bury them, in hiding._

 _So, instead of saying "We've discovered a new planet. We're naming it: PSO J318.5-22", they should've said: "We've taken away this free-falling object's hiding abilities". And instead of gazing at free-falling objects and feeling pity for their solitude, we should look at Jupiter and pity it for how free, in hiding, it must've once been._

I close my journal, the weight of the school day finally over.

I feel my legs begin to wander without a real destination, while my thoughts transport me back to those nine days and eight nights before today:

"Why are you here?"

His eyes were free of movement, half-eclipsed, imprisoned between the cracks of sepia; a silence, but an expertly resolved silence; the weight of his question maintained heaviness in the air, though his disinterest in an answer lay evident. My mind mirrored the sounds without fault – buoyant sentences drowned, and even my heart was silenced partially.

Tanned boy influenced the piano to sing a siren song; I wondered if that was his intention - a fruitless wondering as it most likely was. The expertly muted clunk of old piano pedal asked for my gaze and I granted it; unblemished sole depressed the metal knowledgeably, the other sat still in Purgatory, elevated and positioned up by the stool leg, idly hoisted up by his small, bare toes.

I must have floated closer, for I could not feel the floor beneath myself.

"Don't they get cold?" I found words, but they were the only ones left living.

His toes curled in what I would usually suspect to be self-consciousness, if he were any usual individual; yet I knew from his smile-less eyes that he was different – and the differences could be microscopic, transparent, or heavy and obvious. Red, empty vessels laced with white socks were tucked just beneath the obtuse pedal point – before invisible.

I saw him. He saw me. However, I saw very little, and he seemed to have taken it all.

Like reversed magnets, my eyes were split apart from his, leaving an imprint on my retinas.

"It is my heart, only, that grows cold" He sat stilly, moving away, beyond borders.

I felt like a freedom fighter on foreign soil.

"That's what I named this piece" He joined after a prolonged interlude, more than one of only breathing space, and began depressing the keys, liberating the sounds from their captivities.

And then yesterday evening, when we sat between the hill and that pale moon:

Beneath, his skin laughed, but only with wounded tones.

"I don't feel anything"

A trick mirror – simply, he damaged me with his weightless words.

A trick mirror – but like he'd overdosed on emotion-killing medication, he was numb.

My questioning eyes were immovable – I had no power over them after that instance. I had hoped the blue of my eyes would dilute the mysteriousness of his brown. Takuya's lips separated visibly and a fermata of an exhale leaked uneasily out, his back created a harsh noise as it fell against something ninety degrees to the left.

And he shrunk.

I felt immense pity for Takuya, but my brain would not form any coherent sentences. I had been sat in an awkward position, so my legs groaned as I navigated the space between us and toward those eyes, which were barely visible through his labyrinth of bangs.

The temperence, which had been shadowing the night, released itself in the form of raindrops. Soundless raindrops; silent, at least, to the grassed ground where we existed in that moment. Firstly invisible, it sent minute chills through my nose and lips, then it blanketed us like an overprotective mother. I felt that the rain did protect me in that moment; it was a shield against the tears, which grew in volume, accumulating with the liquid from the clouds to create some kind of hybrid fluid - eighty percent water, twenty percent me.

Takuya's freckled cheeks reflected images of green, rain and I; it gave the impression of his face being made of marble. His eyes remained largely covered by his shaped hair. Small lips parted with an inhale which invited a sentence, though the invitation wasn't accepted until one of his careful hands opened below the sky but above our ground.

"When the weather's just like this, I can feel it, the rain; I'm sure I can" He opened his body to the lazy water droplets, but then surrendered unconditionally , sliding his knees to his chest like a cocooned butterfly – his white undershirt visible – a white flag.

Though that waxen moon was there then, and is here now, faintly in this day sky, somewhere paralleled to this windowless space, he is just as much a stranger now as he was then. He greets me with his wise eyes, but only before mine rise to reflect the act; he then retreats into indifference, into the apparent security behind the piano.

His feet are naked as he plays - naked, yet unrevealing. I envy him for his hiding abilities; the way he creates emotions, with sounds, without extracting any from his own heart; the way he hides himself loudly away in this dusty music block; the way he forces me, unknowingly, to become a hider myself.


	4. Chapter 3

The eighth late afternoon of our acquaintance:

I walked, but inside, I was running. I was fleeing toward that dusty music block, away from the malcontent which existed outside it. With the shamelessness of a stray cat, I entered Takuya's territory; his eyes chose not to ignore my infiltration, his toes rose and dropped with a stretch. We were nomads in that instant, wandering underground the city of words, wordlessly.

The vagabond continued to stare; he seemed completely focused on me in that moment. There was, what I presumed to be, a disappointment to his eyes, like he saw the speed of my heart through my clothes and skin, like he knew how quickly I had rushed to see him there, like he knew what a foothold he'd become.

His frame floated as he effortlessly played, the piano sang again. Time maintained cruel movements, freezing me in its mirror.

"Are you going to sit?" Like a machine, Takuya rose his non-dominant hand in a pointing motion, his voice yet held purity, though over-veiled.

I nodded obediently, traversing the bridge of unspoken words between us; I felt thankful of them at that moment, for if I were to say the unspoken words, then there'd be no unspoken words, and no bridge.

A pained, unthinking rub of his arm, Takuya winced, then quickly returned to his before position. I stopped, my sock and shoe covered feet still in their maximum distance apart, like a cautious general unsure of how to advance. Scent of salt appeared preemptively, the shadows created by barriers between the light and us grew in length and density.

I swept the floor with my eyes, as I'd grown accustomed. A question, in spite of itself, choked me in its desperation to be released, like a drowning person who pulls you under in their attempts at buoyancy. I felt the question noble in its sacrifice - a martyr who'd died for the preservation of my illusion; the angels must've been watching, for they took pity on it, and on me.

He seemed to shine sadly in that moment, his skin was made of copper foil; the courage of sunlight delved between the roads of the creases of jeans created by his knees, unwavering, like my envy of it.

"Did he hurt your arm?" I asked, stretching my hand outward, palm-down.

Like a fox, he flinched away , his cheeks twisted with irritation.

The piano sounds died.

"Why do you always ask questions?" Takuya snapped angrily, his eyes, for once, stared straight into mine.

A red heat attacked my features like a fever, burning me like the tightening feeling in my chest.

"You only concern yourself with other people; do you hate yourself?!" He continued his bombardment, the words heavy and immovable within the thick silences alien to the space.

Creased shirt aging further in my pale grasp, I retreated closer to the architect of my symptoms. Like a soldier with his hands up, I was defenseless before my attacker; but I wasn't a soldier, and this wasn't a war. This was collateral damage, or genocide.

"Leave me" He stood and ordered.

I couldn't leave, even if I desired after it; I had been confiding everything within Takuya. Like an author who uses a secret pen-name, my words dyed the pages as someone else, masterful in their noiselessness; paragraphs leaked into my house of mirrors and were no longer my own, or his.

At home, mother never noticed when I spoke; her tears must've reached her hearing abilities, drowning them in her selfishness. And she was selfish - it'd been four years since dad and Kouichi died, yet she cared more for their wellbeing than mine; their graves being maintained like an expensive car, while I crumbled away.

"Please;" I held my tongue in mistrust, afraid of my secrets.

Takuya had wisdom in those old eyes and experience seemed to trace his cheeks, foreign to my almost watering eyes. He was waiting like a lion waits, granting a deer its last few moments of life; each second of life being a personal gift from the maned animal.

"Be nice to me" My eyes must've been reflective in that moment, within their foreseen hydration.

"I know its wrong of me, to ask this of anyone" I prayed for the words to reflect directly to Takuya's heart, which I knew was pure and just, though showered with indifference and inhumanity.

"But please, don't expose me to the usual cruelness of the world" I prayed for the words to reflect directly to Takuya's heart, and not to that house of mirrors.

I held myself in presentiment, hating how needful I must have appeared. Takuya stepped silent, naked tones around the outside of the piano, away from the indictment of words. His eyes were innocent and his cheeks freckled again, innocent not in inexperience, innocent in some strange, knowing naivety. His face had returned - the face I wished were a still image, for then I could look without fear of it being reflected with convolution.

Takuya sat three seats down from where I stood, his feet crossed over themselves and pulled back behind the chair legs; they were always ever present, but now they hid - were they now speaking?

"I like this boxed ocean" Takuya stated, like it was a natural statement.

"It frees me from that cruelty you speak of; but not of this cruelty you provide" He continued, the lack of accusation clear in that unfamiliar voice.

A self-conscious rub to my drying eyes, I, too, sat - those three spaces between us remaining static. Takuya seemed to wait for a reply, his frame shifting without rhythm. In his self-induced incarceration within these walls, he believes himself to be free; a free citizen with all the liberties a boxed ocean provides, including the lack of oxygen.

"You're not free, as I'm not" He spent time analysing my reply, yet with no reply of his own provided.

I felt a silent, vague sinking beneath my shoes; like salt particles in the rain, guiltless time faded away; orange tones dyed the ground, and the faint sweat of music filled the spaces between our sitting lines.

And I repeated my earlier question:

"Did he hurt your arm?"

"You are cruel, in your questioning"

Takuya stroked his arm protectively, a shield against my, still intrusive, asking. His bare feet slipped, subconsciously, into view but spoke no language, or least no language I could understand; they were unmoving under the boy's mass, unrevealing. I felt a duty, as someone who could see it, to preserve the beauty inside of Takuya, as a government safeguards its secrets.

"I want to protect you"

An unexpected tear, such as Lady Liberty's, brought itself to his eyelashes, clinging to them like the sunset to the horizon.

Vibratos on a violin string, I, too, clung to the sunset, for I was afraid of losing it.


End file.
